I’m turning 32 next week and I’m alone. It isn’t necessarily something that’s ever affected me – the correlation between age and relationship status – but this year I am acutely aware of it.
When things were ending in my last relationship, I didn’t focus on love. I didn’t focus on all the future-tense promises that weren’t being kept or the precarious position that the situation left me whole life in. No, I focused on two things:
-
No one will ever love me
-
“…but he puts up with my anxiety so I’m pretty much screwed otherwise”
You’re not supposed to say either of those things out loud. I’m convinced there are numerous men and woman other there looking at the hands of time thinking the second hand is mocking them and the hour hand is moving with the same deliberate smirk of a cat knocking over a vase. There are surely more people just like me who stare at a Facebook feed filled with birth announcements and happy wedding photos and get annoyed not because other people have their lives together but because I’m jealous of a dumpster fire (hey, at least there’s something complete you can call that!). Alternatively, it might just be me.